Friday, March 25, 2011

The arrested Hindu youths were released on the following day. But people are considering the entire development as the first warning from a communally motivated police officer and more are still to come.

It is important that Gates and Buffet are educated about our system and ethos of giving which exist from ancient times and do not need lectures through business channels which live and even die for TRPs. Buffett should know that the greatest hero of all times in India in our puranas is Karna who gave all and his name is interchangeably used for the art of giving in many Indian languages. – Prof. R. Vaidyanathan

The rootless wonders are agog with ecstasy that Bill Gates and Warren Buffett are visiting India. They will not only explore about investing in India but also urge the Indian business to allocate at least half of their wealth to charity and this year is called year of ‘giving’.

It is important that both of them are educated about our system and ethos of giving which exist from ancient times and do not need lectures through business channels which live and even die for TRPs.

Buffett should know that the greatest hero of all times in India in our puranas is Karna who gave all and his name is interchangeably used for the art of giving in many Indian languages.

Ratan Tata may be shy to point out to Bill Gates that ‘the Tata founders bequeathed most of their individual wealth to many trusts they created for the greater good of India and its people’. So is the case with G D Birla and Jamnalal Bajaj. This may not be trumpeted by Kumara Mangalam Birla and Rahul Bajaj. As a perceptive blogger Sandeep Singh says that as early as 1895 Dayal Singh Majithia bequeathed away three million rupees for noble causes including new ventures by Indians. Actually Majithia was an early ‘venture capitalist’ in India even though not many know about him.

We also find that Swami Vivekananda could not have gone to USA but for local business people funding him and the weightlifters and wrestlers could not have won gold medals at the recent Commonwealth Games but for local traders financing their clubs in remote parts of Orissa and Manipur. Many may not have heard about Ekal Vidyalayas which are one-teacher schools functioning in remote parts of India, particularly in tribal areas. They are in as many as 35,000 villages, educating more than one million children. Take the other example of Satya Sai initiative to bring water to Rayalseema using private donations. The Ninth Plan document of Planning Commission says, “The Sathya Sai Charity has set an unparalleled initiative of implementing on their own without any budgetary support a massive water supply project with an expenditure of `3 billion to benefit 731 villages, etc.”

Later this project was extended to Chennai costing more than `600 crore. Ramakrishna Mission runs around 200 hospitals serving nearly one crore people annually mostly in rural areas. It also runs around 1,200 educational institutions serving more than 3.5 lakh students of which more than 1.25 lakh are in rural areas.

Nadars engaged in business in Tamil Nadu have funded hundreds of educational institutions and hospitals and so the Marwaris/Chettiars/Katchis/Bhoras all over India.

A lot of our education, healthcare, arts, literature and spirituality efforts/ventures have been fully financed by businessmen who are even shy to talk about it. Herein is the secret to the fundamental ethos of giving in India. It is done without advertisements and trumpets. Actually in our tradition the giver is reluctant to talk about it since it embarrasses the receiver. The fact that it could demean the receiver is reason enough for the giver to keep silent. Remember the way Nitish Kumar reacted when the donation from Gujarat for flood relief in Bihar was advertised? Nitish Kumar recalled our tradition of giving without revealing.

It is told in our ancient wisdom that one should give till the hand bleeds and one should not talk about it. The action will speak even centuries later. The upstarts of today write on every tubelight their names before donating it to a temple or call press conferences to declare their ‘intentions’. That is the US culture. Everything from lovemaking to charity should be advertised and shown on prime time television. Then only you prove that the spouses and receivers are happy.

But why this sudden wallowing in self pity and whining about giving? It all started with the Indira Gandhi Prize being given to Bill Gates on July 25, 2009, and wherein the chairman of National Advisory Council Sonia Gandhi read a speech on the need for Indian businessmen to give for charity (like Bill Gates) and it was published in full by Wall Street Journal and a columnist in that paper pontificated the “rich in India to open their wallets”. Leaders and media in India who are clueless about Indian ethos are setting the Gates and Buffett’s to further pontificate to our business people.

It is interesting that Bill Gates who has operations in Cayman islands and Reno of Nevada to minimise or evade taxes to be paid to the United States government is enthusiastic about “Giving by India Inc”. Warren Buffett is planning to give his dollar assets to the Gates foundation which will reduce estate taxes in the future. Interestingly both of them are some of the few US business barons supporting estate taxes. It is not clear who are their dinner guests in India. If it is Forbes billionaires from India we hope Shahid Balwa of the Spectrum fame is not going to be there!

Somebody should also tell Bill Gates and Warren Buffett that India Inc constitutes less than 15 per cent of our GDP and the real growth masters are small partnership and proprietorship firms which are deeply involved in giving. Actually India Inc in our economy is like an item number in a Bollywood movie. Good to talk about on TV but only has the glamour quotient. Also can we suggest to Gates and Buffett to stop investing in firms in tax havens since that sucks away billions of dollars of money from countries like India. If they really want to help India then they should start a campaign to close down all these tax havens rather than having expensive company-paid dinners at five star hotels of our country urging Balwas to give. – The New Indian Express, Chennai, March 23, 2011

» R. Vaidyanathan is Professor of Finance and Control at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore.

The idols nomenclate me as the infidel,there must be God’s will in this.

Though he was the last speaker of the session and thus had the opportunity to reply to Arif Mohammed Khan’s fervent, logicaland passionate speech but it seemed Geelani had clearly lost it. Seemed someone had understood the essence of Holy Koran better than Geelani and obviously had more to do with Kashmir’s glorious but pre-islamic or even secular past. He was stumped by Arif Mohammed’s references to Kalhan, Lalleshwari and Nund Rishi.Arif Mohammed had his day.But the worst for Geelani was yet to come.It was left to a young exiled Pandit to tell the audience how his mother wrapped him in a cloth to escape death at the hands of Geelani’s zealots when he was barely nine months old.The more inconvenient question was why Geelani had Abdul Ghani Lone(one of his own Hurriyat members killed). Aditya Raj Kaul had the audience cheering and when Geelani tom tommedthe usual conspiracy by Jagmohan it was received by jeers from the crowd.

NAGPUR: Yoga guru and anti-corruption crusaderBaba Ramdeo on Thursday joined the league of high profile men like former American president George Bush and Union Home minister P Chidambaram who were targeted with shoes at public places.

A central paramilitary force jawan created sensation at Reshimbagh ground where Baba Ramdeo was addressing a massive audience when he flung a pair of boots that landed close to Baba's podium.

Mitu Sinh Rathod, a jawan with Central Reserve Police Force, had come down from Gwalior to learn yoga from the guru. He is on leave. The jawan apparently hurled shoes after being disappointed as there was no scope for him to learn yoga in public rally. He was taken to Kotwali police station but no offence was registered against him.

The Australian evangelist who was creating tension and confrontation in Orissa, which resulted in communal flare up and culminated in his death is now being made into a film by vested interests who are hell bent on giving Hindus a bad name. Some American guy has been roped in to play the role of Graham Staines. The shooting of the film is going on in Panchgani, Maharashtra. The Shiv Sena & BJP should investigate what is the nature of the film and the extent of anti-Hindu propaganda that has been made into the film content. Once the film is made it will result in adverse publicity for the Hindus. The story/script/dialogue of the film should be made public in order to pre empt any anti-Hindu propaganda.

Mr Tarun Vijay, MP Rajya Sabha has been invited by the China government to study its power projects and infrastructure development. He has met several Chinese leaders of the China Communist Party and visited Olympics village, Tiananmen Square. He is in a high level MP delegation with Shri Ravi Shankar Prasad, Gen Secy, BJP, Shri Uddasi, MP, Dr Vivekananda, MP, and Mr Hamidullah Syed, MP (Congress).

Mr Tarun Vijay said that he has invited the Chinese Communist Party leaders to come to Uttarakhand for party to party discussions, taking the cooperation further after the visit of BJP president Mr Gadkari to China recently and also to help our state develop hydro power and infrastructure development. He will visit Shanghai also and meet Indian entrepreneurs, specially from Uttarakhand state.

This is for those who ask me to remove the picture of Swami Vivekananda from my site because of my communal “Hindu” characteristic. When it comes to Hindu pride, Swami Vivekananda is a million times more dangerous then me.

“I AM PROUD TO CALL MYSELF A HINDU” –

Swami Vivekananda

Here am I, one of the least of Hindu race, yet proud of my race, proud of myancestors. I am proud to call myself a Hindu, I am proud that I am one of yourunworthy servants, I am proud that I am a countryman of yours, you the descendantsof the sages, you the descendants of the most glorious rishis the world ever saw.

Therefore, have faith in yourself; be proud of your ancestors, instead of beingashamed of them. When a man has begun to be ashamed of his ancestors, the endhas comeAnd do not imitate, do not imitate! O ye modern Hindus, de-hypnotize yourselves….

Mark me, then and then alone you are a Hindu, when the very name sends throughyou a galvanic shock of strength.Then and then alone you are a Hindu when the distress of any one bearing thatname comes to your heart and makes you fees as if your own son were in distress.Then and then alone you are a Hindu when you will be ready to bear everything forthem.Mark me!

Every one of you will have to be a Guru Gobind Singh if you want to dogood to your country.You may see thousands of defects in you countrymen, but mark their Hindu blood.They are the fist gods you will have to worship even if they do everything to hurt you.All our hatches let us bury and send tout this grand current of love all round…My life’s allegiance is to my Motherland, and if I had a thousand lives, every momentof the whole series would be consecrated to your service, my countrymen, myfriend…

Courtesy Acorn, here is one very good reason why India must support Tibet (emphasis added):

Tibetan is the only language to preserve the entire range of the Buddha’s teachings, including the texts on logic and theories of knowledge (epistemology), which we inherited from India’s Nalanda University. This is a system of knowledge governed by reason and logic that has the potential to contribute to the peace and happiness of all beings. Therefore, the policy of undermining such a culture, instead of protecting and developing it, will in the long run amount to the destruction of humanity’s common heritage.